Empires Come, Empires Go

The church on the cliff in Amasra, Turkey, on the Black Sea coast, was built in the early AD’s, then destroyed, rebuilt, then turned into a mosque, then back into a church, saw medieval castle walls rise around it and crumble away, and then turned into a mosque again.

Turkey’s Black Sea coast has patiently waited out the rise and fall of empires and civilizations, tribes and armies and kings and generals slaughtering and assimilating each other for control of heaven on earth ports, Amasra chief among them.
The Amazons, Phoenicians, Persians, Romans, Byzantines, and Ottomans have all come and gone.
Today, for the few months of summer anyway, Amasra is a coveted refuge away from the realities of Turkish life (few foreigners seem to holiday here), with a thriving industry of fish restaurants and beach chair renters, and UNESCO World Heritage medieval ruins.
If only I had more than two days.